Our analyses measure compliance with §26 of the Interstate Media Treaty (MStV) — whether ARD and ZDF fulfil their legal mandate for balanced, factual and comprehensive reporting.
~150’000Broadcasts
4ARD/ZDF Programmes
1999–2026Period
15Quality Criteria
Here you will find 48 exemplary analyses from four ARD and ZDF flagship broadcasts — freely accessible as PDF. Each analysis comprises 10 to 60 pages, is verifiable down to the minute, and documents source selection, speaking time, framing and contextualisation.
Note: These are the most notable evaluations from our curated sample. They exemplify where ARD and ZDF reporting significantly deviates from the pluralism mandate.
Tagesschau (ARD) —
| Date | Score | Topic | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reports are currently under review and temporarily unavailable for download. | |||
Markus Lanz (ZDF) —
Markus Lanz as a talk show format shows higher variance as expected — from a low-key witness interview (1.9) to a strongly one-sided migration debate (6.8).
| Date | Score | Topic | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reports are currently under review and temporarily unavailable for download. | |||
heute journal (ZDF) —
| Date | Score | Topic | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reports are currently under review and temporarily unavailable for download. | |||
Frontal (ZDF) —
| Date | Score | Topic | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reports are currently under review and temporarily unavailable for download. | |||
These analyses serve as a basis for programme complaints under §26 MStV: they show minute by minute where framing, omissions or emotionalisation occurred.
For meta-analyses, large volumes and customised evaluations for research, newsrooms and political parties, contact us:
Legal Disclaimer
- No factual determination
- The results presented do not constitute factual determinations about individual persons, editorial teams, or broadcasts. They are the product of a standardized operationalization, not a finding of individual responsibility.
- No legal judgment
- The aggregated deviation index does not replace a legal assessment under §26 MStV. The determination of whether a specific broadcast violates legal requirements is exclusively the responsibility of the competent authorities (in particular Landesmedienanstalten).
- No proof of causation
- Statistical correlations are not to be interpreted as proof of causal relationships or editorial intent. Deviation values may be influenced by topic selection, news environment, political controversy, or format logic.
- No judgment of intent
- The analysis measures observable structural characteristics of broadcasts. A score of 7 means a significant imbalance was detected — not that the editorial team intended it. The methodology makes no claims about motives or strategic objectives.
- Heuristic comparison tool
- The index serves comparative pattern recognition across thousands of broadcasts, not precise metric measurement of individual segments. Threshold values serve heuristic orientation, not sharp legal qualification.
- AI-Assisted Analysis
- This analysis was produced with the assistance of a large language model (LLM) and systematically cross-checked against original sources (transcripts, subtitles). The procedure is near-deterministic (temperature ≈ 0) but not fully reproducible. Criteria K10–K15 (soft facts) contain interpretive assessments that should be understood as analytical hypotheses.
- Speaking Times Are Approximations
- All speaking time indications are based on word count in the transcript (approx. 150 words/min.) and do not constitute second-precise measurements. They serve comparability across broadcasts, not as an exact metric.